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was intensified by the cold and there were often bitter running battles on the sidelines. Below us smoke thickened in the still air over the town. White frost lay in the shadows. In the Heather Hills we lit fires and dropped potatoes into the embers. We wrenched thick sheets of ice from the ponds. We talked of girls and the bomb. We imagined that we were survivors after war, that waste and death were all around us.
    It was on a Saturday afternoon that I came upon Kev again. I was making my way home. I heard him calling my name, saw him coming toward me across the fields.
    “You won’t believe it,” he said.
    He took a haversack from his shoulder, took out the polished wooden box from inside.
    “You’ve seen nothing like it,” he said.
    He opened the box and took out the jar and held it toward me.
    “Look,” he said.
    I took it from him and held it to the fading light. I saw the half-formed features, the little legs, the little arms.
    “There was a note that it should be buried with her. Nobody’d touch it, though. My mam cried all night about it. My dad wouldn’t go near it. Said it was evil. Everybody thinks somebody else took it away.” He leaned close to me. “See?” he said. “They were right about the cow. A bloody witch.”
    The baby turned gently in the liquid as I moved it against the light.
    “You think it’s real?” he whispered.
    The baby’s flesh through the years had become darker, more opaque than ours, but I saw the outlines of bones and blood vessels. The outline of his skin was blurred, as if he had started to dissolve. He held up his hands as if to hold on to or fend off something.
    “He’ll be in Limbo,” I said.
    He looked at me.
    “Where the souls of the unchristened go. You can be happy there. But you can’t know God, and you can’t be with the christened.”
    He grinned.
    “It’s even got a dick. If you tip it up you’ll see it.”
    “What you doing with it?” I asked.
    He shrugged.
    “Don’t know. I was going to get it out. I got the lid off, then I didn’t dare.”
    We stared at each other. He took the jar from me and started to unscrew the metal lid. We breathed deeply. There was a chemical scent as the lid came off.
    “I thought of you,” he said. “Soon as I got it.”
    We sighed and bit our lips. We watched his fingers reaching in. He grunted and recoiled, couldn’t do it. Some of the liquid slopped out on to the grass.
    “Stupid,” I said.
    I looked at the sky, the disappearing sunlight. I told Kev to clear off. I said I’d take the baby. We fought, rolling over on the frosty grass, but I was bigger than him and it was soon over. I held him by the throat and said he knew nothing about this. I said it was secret and I’d kill him if he told. I grinned and said there were spells she’d taught me. I grunted some mumbo jumbo and spat down onto the grass beside his face.
    “Stupid sod,” I said.
    I let him up. I threw the haversack at him. There were tears and blood on his face. I stepped toward him and he backed away. I put the lid back on the jar and the jar back in the box.
    “Go on,” I told him.
    I took my knife from my pocket and folded out its blade.
    He lurched away across the field. He kept cursing me, sobbing. I watched him, waited till he’d gone.
    I moved back up into the Heather Hills. The light was fading fast. I broke the ice on a pond. I found a sheltered grassy spot close by, beneath a hawthorn tree. I started to dig with the knife. After the icy crust the earth crumbled easily and I scooped it out with my fingers. I poured the liquid out of the jar, holding the baby back with the lid. I tore a strip of blackout from my trousers, laid it across my hand. I took the lid away and the baby tumbled out on to my palm. I reached into the pond, lifted some water, trickled it over the baby.
    “I name you Anthony,” I said.
    I prayed that the Devil would be defeated, that the baby would be acceptable to God, that he would be welcomed now. I stared